PA To Begin Universal Coronavirus Testing In Nursing Homes

EXTON, PA — Officials in Pennsylvania are launching "universal" coronavirus testing in nursing homes that they hope will help control the spread of the virus where it has caused the most damage.

All staff and residents will be tested under the new program.

"Nursing homes are a problem all around the world," Gov. Wolf said on Tuesday. "What we're gonna do, which I think is fairly radical, is make sure we're doing surveillance testing."

In addition, all hospitals and nursing homes must test patients or residents before they are discharged, even if they were not hospitalized for the virus.

Some state legislators have been lobbying for the move for months.

"I am grateful that the DOH heard what my colleagues and I along with so many of my constituents have been advocating for over the past two months," State Rep. Melissa Shusterman (D-Chester) said in a statement. "COVID-19 has created intense challenges for direct care providers in congregate care settings. They’re putting themselves at risk while trying to protect our most vulnerable."

State Sen. Bob Mensch (R-Montgomery) agreed that the move was long overdue, and questioned why it had taken the state so long.

"Commercial laboratories, which have done more than 2.6 million COVID-19 tests, have excess capacity to meet rising demand," Mensch said, citing a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from April 29.

The goal of surveillance testing, as compared to community testing, is specifically to gauge the state of the virus within a given area, not to determine whether an individual is positive or negative.

Ideally, surveillance testing allows for health officials to plan for the future.

"This provides valuable information to the facility to ensure they can cohort the patient properly, monitor their condition and take proper precautions to prevent the spread of the virus," a statement issued by the Department of Health reads.

Testing will be done once a week at facilities. The state lab in Exton will handle the vast majority of samples. In certain cases, private labs will handle the testing, which could cause a slight delay in the return of results.

Nursing homes have accounted for a significant percentage of both coronavirus cases and fatalities in Pennsylvania and elsewhere since the outbreak began. In certain counties, they account for the overwhelming majority of cases.

In Pennsylvania, there have been 2,611 deaths in long term care facilities from coronavirus, as of Tuesday afternoon. There have also been 12,130 cases among facility residents, and 1,724 cases among staff.

The state said they've sent more than 1,700 shipments of protective gear to facilities to help protect staff.

The state's Bureau of Laboratories, located on Pickering Way in Exton, is the state's central public health lab, and supports disease prevention throughout the commonwealth. It was the first lab in the state to begin testing for coronavirus back on March 4.